Anyway, Simon was not concerned with Thai at that moment. It had vanished; but then, so had its master.
Max’s disappearance was more prosaic. He had simply gone through the door. It was still open as he had left it.
Simon did not rush after him. He figured there would be many escape routes in the Castle, and Max would be well clear before pursuit even got started, while the Saint himself would risk blundering into an ambush. The man who had so admirably and cleverly outwitted him might well have more tricks up his sleeve now. It was not often that the Saint met his match.
What the future held for Max was something to speculate about another time. Simon imagined that such a successful and influential crook must have contacts in many countries. He would easily be able to build a new life for himself in some place like Argentina or Peru. Perhaps a peon in Columbia, sneaking a sackful of stolen gems from an emerald mine, would have merry brown eyes and hum “The Blue Danube” as he went. Or perhaps Max would be the subject of a Grand Jury investigation in New York. Simon wondered if they would let him wear Thai like a fur collar while he invoked the Fifth Amendment.
The Saint was more concerned with his immediate situation. He could, of course, walk out of Max’s study and down the passage to the door which opened on to the gallery. As he knew, it was locked and possibly bolted on his side. Obviously the sensible thing to do was to go along and unlock it and walk back across the gallery to his room. But his room had also been locked by the indefatigable Erich, who had taken the key away, and the Saint had not brought any tools for lock-picking.
It seemed to him that for far too long he had been on the run from people intent on doing him harm. He was tired of having to crawl and climb around difficult, uncomfortable and even dangerous places, in order to elude this type of person. But then, up to now, he had been handicapped by having a young and impulsive woman to look after and an equally young and even more impulsive boy. Now he was on his own, which was how he liked it to be, and he decided to make the most of it.
Inspired by the thought, he stuffed the necklace casually into his shirt pocket and set off back down the stairs, treading as insouciantly as if he owned them.
Suddenly, from below came the sound of voices and feet running along the echoing passage. Max, en route to freedom, had alerted his bully boys and told them to go and get the Saint and do him in. That way he wouldn’t be around when the ultimate nastiness took place, and his sensitive soul would remain unbruised.
Then Simon saw them, the Rat and the Gorilla, waiting for him at the foot of the stairs. Annellatt’s men.
Being the obedient thick-headed villains they were, and being two to one, and armed, they must have figured they were in an impregnable position. They were like two well-trained and rather vicious dogs, and the Saint for an instant almost felt sorry for them. Until he remembered the surprised look on the dead face of Anton as he lay in a pool of his own blood in the cabin.
If the Rat and the Gorilla had the advantage of weaponry and numbers, Simon Templar had the advantage of surprise, which he could create for himself by sheer quickness of wit. And in such an emergency his wits connected like lightning.
“Geronimo!” he yelled, at the most startling top of his lungs, and did something which his adversaries could not possibly have dreamed of his doing in such circumstances. He simply leapt on to the banister and slid downwards.
The Gorilla’s reflexes were too slow to enable him to take aim at such a fast-moving target. The Rat recovered faster, but by the time he had come out of shock sufficiently to bring his gun to bear, Simon had left the banisters halfway down and dropped from view on the floor below, and the Rat’s bullet harmlessly splintered the rail.
The Saint was now concealed from the two thugs by the staircase itself, but he gave them no time to regroup. Whirling like an avenging typhoon around the newel post at the bottom of the stairs, he was upon the Rat before the latter could locate him. The Rat, being small and not particularly strong, didn’t stand a chance, which was all the more unfortunate for him since the Saint used him as a shield between himself and the Gorilla, whose reactions were too sluggish to stop him pulling the trigger of the gun he was trying to aim at the Saint. That bullet ended the Rat’s meager and evil-filled life for good and all — or perhaps, more aptly, for bad and all.
The Rat’s pistol dropped from his dead hand, and the Rat followed it and cascaded on to the floor.
The Gorilla was still trying to take aim when the Saint threw his knife. The gun spoke, but the Gorilla’s shot went wide because of the swiftness with which the Saint was moving. The knife flew straight and true as an arrow to bury itself up to the hilt in the Gorilla’s throat, and the Gorilla slumped to the ground beside the Rat, choking his last gasps on his own blood.
The Saint did not wait to consider their passing, any longer than to scoop up the handiest of the two fallen guns. The two thugs, he considered, were better out of this world than in it.
His own tiredness had evaporated, the blood raced through his veins and zest filled his soul. He had done what he liked doing best, triumphing over the Ungodly and thwarting their knavish tricks, as the British National Anthem called them. So he told himself. Actually, if he had been more analytical, he would have been honest enough to admit that it boiled down to the fact that he had enjoyed a good fight and coming out on top.
Which was all very fine, except that winning a skirmish was not winning a war. Or even a decisive battle. There were still hurdles to take, bridges to cross, and even metaphors to mangle.
In plainer language, what was the back-up organisation behind the latest casualties? And/or what was the other factor which their clumsiness didn’t fully account for?
Who tipped off the border guards about the fake passes? Who, in another phrase, was the rotten apple in Max Annellatt’s own carefully sifted barrel?
Stepping over the prostrate bodies of his two erstwhile opponents, Simon walked down to the end of the passage where there were two doors. The one straight ahead obviously led into the main body of the Schloss, and he knew the one on the left gave on to the courtyard.
The Saint tried the inner door. As he expected, it was locked. Behind it, all the state rooms would also be locked and wired with burglar alarms.
Simon Templar believed that the most direct and obvious action was frequently the most brilliant. He therefore calmly unbolted the courtyard door and walked out into what still remained of the night.
As he moved briskly across the cobblestones, he checked the load and action of the gun he had taken over. One hazard he could do without was that of being penalised by any incompetence of the enemy, who in some respects had betrayed streaks of vulnerable sloppiness. He tucked the pistol under his belt, just inside the unbuttoned front of his shirt.
He mounted the broad steps to the main front door of the Castle, and rang the bell just as if he were a casual visitor — albeit a casual visitor with bloody scratches on his face. There was no answer, so the Saint rang again, this time long and hard.
After a while, the lights went up in the Great Hall and there was a noise of bolts being retracted. The lock clicked as the key turned, and then the door slowly and silently opened, the alarm having been switched off.
The Saint stepped into the blazingly lighted hall.
“Good evening — once again, Erich!” he said.